Local Cooling

Locals gather at the Heritage Park fountain in downtown Olympia. Ironically located between two large cool bodies of water — Puget Sound and Capitol Lake — the fountain is a scenic tourist draw and an interactive sprinkler for overheated bodies on days like today, with the mercury into the mid 90s.

This photo was in part an experiment with long daylight exposures. Normally bright sunlight makes long exposures impossible, but the clever photographer can fight back with the use of filters. On the end of the lens for this shot were three filters:

Oh, add on the always-present UV filter, and it’s four. Quite a stack and they start getting in the way of the edge of the photo with the lens at its widest, but they do cut down enough light for a long exposure, in this case, 1.6 seconds. And they show nice rich saturated colors. I like the sense of motion the long exposure gives, and if you imagine the squeals of many small children, it’s just like being there. (1.6 sec., f/22, ISO 200)